


Professionalism

by Lady Divine (fhartz91)



Series: Outside Edge [33]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Ice Skating, Kurt and Sebastian being cute goofballs and playing with little kids, M/M, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 16:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13057875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhartz91/pseuds/Lady%20Divine
Summary: Coach Beiste is giving a brand new 'stage mom' a tour of her facility - a woman lured to the Westerville Ice-plex by the stellar reputation of their ultra-serious junior coaches, Kurt Hummel and Sebastian Smythe.At least, that's what she thinks.





	Professionalism

“Now you’re _sure_ my children will get the training they need at your facility to become gold medal winners? I’m paying good money for them both to become _champions_. _National_ champions.”

Coach Beiste stops herself from groaning as she leads her latest _stage mom_ , Mrs. Arnell Blankenship, through the double doors to the South Rink.

But she does roll her eyes when the woman’s not looking.

“Like I said, Mrs. Blankenship, we have one of the finest facilities in Ohio: two Olympic-sized rinks, a state-of-the-art gymnasium specially tailored for competitive figure skaters …”

“State-of-the-art.” The woman scoffs, stopping to lightly kick a sideline bench that’s seen better days – one of the few relics left over from the rink’s latest renovation. But what Mrs. Blankenship doesn’t know (and she probably wouldn’t care) is that that bench is an heirloom. One of the first American hockey teams to ever compete in the Olympics visited the Westerville Ice-plex a long while back (when it was called the Westerville Ice-flow Arena) and their players sat on those benches. As far as Coach Beiste is concerned, they’re going to bury her with them – disassemble them and use the wood to build her coffin. “This whole place looks a bit _outdated_ if you ask me.”

 _No one asked you_ , Beiste thinks.

“We’ve been in Ohio a long time. We have a rich history here. There’s no crime in gettin’ older, is there?” Beiste winks at the woman who looks personally offended by that remark. “Besides, our rink boasts more gold medalists than any other rink in Ohio.”

“So you say.” Mrs. Blankenship turns up her nose. “But that doesn’t necessarily impress me. Like you said, you’ve been around a long time. That could just be a consequence of _old age_.”

This time, Coach Beiste _does_ groan, but manages to segue into a hacking cough when Mrs. Blankenship gives her a judgmental side-eye glance.

“My children could have trained at _any_ rink in Ohio, Coach Beiste. They were personally invited to train at the rink in Columbus by the owner himself.”

 _“So you say,”_ Coach Beiste mimics to herself. “ _And about a hundred times already ..._ ”

“But I came here, in part, because of the popularity of your junior coach program.”

“Oh, yes.” Coach Beiste puffs up proudly. “It’s one of a kind. We have more junior coaches on the ice during skate school than any other rink. We feel it’s important for our kids to interact as much with the junior coaches as our adult coaches. It’s good for the kids to have someone their own age that they can get help from. Plus, the friendships our kids form with their peers …”

“My kids don’t _need_ friends, Coach Beiste,” Mrs. Blankenship cuts in. “They have each other. That’s why I had the two. _And_ they have _me_. They don’t need anyone distracting them and wasting their time. The only reason why I want my kids interacting with the skaters in your program is because I want them surrounded by quality peers; peers who are _proven winners_ , who know the value of hard work, and who have a _thirst_ to excel. I want my children to know that there are skaters their ages who strive for perfection, who let nothing get in their way.”

 _Proven winners_. Coach Beiste shakes her head. _They’re not race horses. They’re kids._ Every time she meets a woman like Blankenship, she thinks she might be getting a little too old for this. She became general manager when she was twenty-six. She’s _twice_ that age now. She’s spent every day of her life at this rink – coaching, working the box office, doing maintenance, cutting the ice, even cleaning the johns. She doesn’t go on vacation, doesn’t take sick days. She has more than enough to retire comfortably, to a small house on the beach, where she never has to talk to another uppity skate mom or angry hockey dad again. The only reason why she sticks around is so she can make sure these kids have a safe place to come and practice.

And she has a special place in her heart for the figure skaters and hockey players whose parents put too much pressure on them to be _perfect_.

In that case, she doesn’t see herself retiring to that little beach house anytime soon.

“We support _all_ our kids here,” Coach Beiste says, “competition skaters or not, and encourage them to do their best. But we also like our kids to be _kids_ , and to remember that there’s more to life than winning gold medals.”

“Funny you should say that when you advertise your rink as home to Kurt Hummel and Sebastian Smythe. If I remember correctly, they rank in the top five, don’t they?” Mrs. Blankenship sniffs superiorly as if she had just made some damning point. “You don’t rise to that height without _serious_ dedication to the sport.”

“Really?” Coach Beiste says, amused at the amount of condescension in this woman’s voice. It’s hard to believe that she’s a mom. She seems to know _nothing_ about children.

Coach Beiste takes that back. She sees half a dozen parents like Mrs. Blankenship a day. Just goes to show – you don’t need to know anything about raising children to actually have one.

“Really.”

Coach Beiste bites her lower lip. “Hmm. Interesting.” From the corner of her eye, she sees the train wreck coming their way, but there’s no way for her to stop it.

Nor would she want to.

“Onward! Onward and upward! We must forge ahead into the great unknown!”

Both women turn towards the sound - a young boy crowing over the roar of plastic against ice, sliding full-tilt towards them.

Coach Beiste snickers.

Mrs. Blankenship’s face goes white.

Sebastian, dressed in hockey pads over his practice outfit with a helmet on his head and perched on top of one of the rink’s blue dolphins, points emphatically forward, while Mrs. Blankenship’s daughter Tammy (also dressed in hockey gear) pushes him down the ice, giggling madly while Sebastian cries, “Go, Tammy! Or they shall capture us forthwith for sure!”

“Aye-aye, Captain!” the little girl manages between fits of laughter, her slightly too-big helmet falling over her eyes. She jars the dolphin to the right, which almost unseats its rider, but Sebastian shifts his weight and they carry on. Behind them, another blue dolphin gives chase, this one with a padded-up Kurt poised more conservatively in its plastic saddle, raising a broken hockey stick aloft in his right hand.

“Get ‘em, Thomas!” Kurt encourages the boy (whose gear fits him better than Tammy’s fits her) pushing his dolphin and laughing just as hard as his sister. “We must capture them and avenge our _hoooonnnnooooorrrr_!”

“Yes, sir!” Thomas calls, whooping and hollering as he digs his blades into the ice to pick up speed, nearly rear-ending the dolphin in front of them.

“Wha---what the hell are they _doing_?” Mrs. Blankenship screeches, debating between racing onto the ice in her boots to drag her kids off or watching this disaster play out.

“This is how our junior coaches train,” Coach Beiste says, holding back a laugh.

“How is _this_ training!?”

“Strength and balance.” Beiste tuts as if the answer is obvious.

Mrs. Blankenship scowls, her offended expression permanently glued to her face. “You’re making that up!”

“I am not. Our coaches find it easier to train our skaters through games and play instead of just strict repetition. When you learn to enjoy practicing the hard stuff like endurance, speed, and strength, it seems less like a chore.” She turns away from the giggling skaters and back to their mortified mother. “After all, if your kids aren’t having fun on the ice, what’re they there for?”

Mrs. Blankenship attempts to come up with an answer, opening and closing her mouth like a gaping fish, but what would she say? That someone who claimed they were a coach told her that her kids had heaps of natural talent and she decided to capitalize on it? That she chose this for them when they both saw it as a hobby? That the decision to turn them into champions was hers, not theirs? That they’d rather be playing soccer with their friends right now than be out here on the ice, but she knows better?

She can’t admit to any of that, because that might make her sound like a jerk.

Sounding like a jerk in her head is one thing. Saying it out loud and having someone else confirm it is quite another, especially to the behemoth woman in front of her, smirking with one side of her mouth like she already knows.

Sebastian howls, and she focuses back on him.

“Come about!” he cries. “Let us stop running like _cowards_ and fight like _men_!”

“I don’t want to be a _man_! I want to be _Wonder Woman_!” Tammy grunts, leaning on the handle of the dolphin to get it to change direction.

“Capital idea! Positively top notch! Come about, Wonder Woman! Let us vanquish our foes!”

Tammy’s blades skid over the ice as she attempts to spin them around, but even though she’s running fast, she goes nowhere. She stops for a second, pulls back, then pushes hard left, trying to force the dolphin to turn, but that tosses Sebastian to the ice, and the whole caravan comes to a screeching halt. Everyone, including Coach Beiste and Mrs. Blankenship, gasp. But Sebastian rolls to his knees and leaps to his feet in an instant.

“I’m o-kay!” he announces, and the two kids cheer, gathering around him to give him a high-five. Kurt, still sitting on his dolphin, laughs so hard, tears leak from the corners of his squeezed eyelids.

“And that’s why they wear pads,” Beiste says, wiping tears from her own eyes.

“ _What_!?” Mrs. Blankenship takes a deep breath and counts to five, trying to regain her composure. “Coach Beiste,” she says, ready to launch into a huge speech about commitment and professionalism and attitude and decorum, the same speech she’s given her kids more than a dozen times this week alone, but Coach Beiste speaks up before she has a chance.

“Before you say anything, pumpkin, you already signed the contract, so your deposit’s not refundable.”

Mrs. Blankenship’s speech dies inside a small yelp in the back of her throat. “But, I … no, I …” She looks from Coach Beiste’s challenging stare to the kids on the ice, hers included, rolling around and fanning their arms and legs, laughing and making angels.

Her kids are _laughing_.

For the first time in weeks, honest to God _laughing_.

She may not like _why_ they’re laughing, but they’re laughing.

She _could_ stick to her guns, grab her children and leave, but she’s in no mood to be the bad guy today, not when she’s up against the two young men she’d so adamantly used as examples of greatness. If she did that, then one way or another, she’d have to admit she was wrong – either about them being role models, or about the amount of seriousness required to be an exceptional athlete. Besides, $300 is a lot of money to flush, especially when other rinks with less stellar reputations charge twice as much for their programs. She crosses her arms tightly and huffs. “Fine.”

“Wonderful!” Coach Beiste beams at the reluctant woman, clapping her on the shoulder. “Welcome to the Westerville Ice-plex family!”

Mrs. Blankenship takes a step to her right out of the infuriating woman’s reach, but she can’t help smiling when she sees her little Tammy break off with Coach Sebastian and perform her first ever clean waltz jump with the biggest grin ever on her face. “Fantastic.”


End file.
